The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-07-02
PROGRESS FROM POVERTY.
BY GILES B. STEBBINs.
Detroit, Mich.)
Narrow and One-sided Method.
Ill.

cannot lie" is popular fallacy. Use
only part of any group of honest fig
ures and ignore the rest, and anything
can appear to be proved-a lie just as
well as the truth.
So it is with personal character.
Write the lives of the saints, of the
really best men and women, and tell
only the story Of their foibles and mis-
takes, and they will no longer be saints,
but below poor human average. Write
their lives with only their high aims
and sanity deeds, and all their human
imperfections left out, and they are i'm
possible anomalies, unnatural and of
no inspiring power to us. Write those
lives in their mingling of light and
shadow, of struggles and triumphs, and
an uplifting hope and power come to
us as we read the truthful record. AS
with statistics and personal character,
so it is with history. There is mar
row and false method, and broad and
| true one.
While there are errors of fact in ''Pro-
gress and Poverty" there are truths in
it, but they are one-sided; the method
is narrow and false, and therefore de-
lusive. We have the shame of civili-
cation, but not its glory; its pride of
power, but not its fine humanity; its
grinding want, but not it's noble phil
anthropy or its plans to uplift the down
trodden; the monopolizng tendency Of
its great increase of productive power,
| but not the diffusive and benefcent
tendency of that increase; the decrease
of wages in one place, but not the in
crease in another; the tendency to
great wealth in few hands, but not that
to larger means and better life for the
multitude; the alleged negation and de-
struction of "the ideas from which re-
ligion springs" and which are "dying
at the root" but not the deeper root
ing and uplifting higher skyward of the
great ideas of Deity, Duty and Immor-
tally. With intense earnestness, some
times with glowing eloquence, is this
sided method pursued, and the
reader is dazed and confused, or filled
with baleful despair.
Here is glowing picture of our pos.
sible future:
eff, while there is time, we turn to JUS
tice and obey her, trust Liberty and fol-
low her," then, with want destroyed;
with greed changed to noble passions;
with the fraternity born of equality TAX
ing the place of the jealousy and fear
that now array men against each other;
with mental power loosed by conditions
that give to the humblest comfort and
leisure; and who shall measure the
heights to which our civilization may
soar? Words fail the thought 1t is the
Golden Age of which poets have sung
and seers have told It is the glorious
vision which has always haunted man
with CLEANS of fitful splendor. 1t is what
he saw whose eyes at Patmos we're closed
in trance. 1t is the elimination of
Christianity-the city OF God on earth,
with its walls of jasper and it's gates of
pearl! 1t is the reign Of the Prince of
Peacer'
Great material progress has been
made, yet the rank and increasing
growth of poverty has poisoned the
air breathed by the growing host of
wretched toilers. But with one step
up poverty is to vanish, selfish greed
even is to be extirpated; we are to see
on earth, the ''walls of jasper and gates
of pearl" open to all, when no farmer
owns the land he tills, and no house
holder owns the soil on which he has
reared home. If that step, pointed
out by Henry George, is not taken in
time, we
spin down the ringing grooves of change"
to chaos and thick darkness
Thrift and Good Habits Help But Little.
Intelligent industry is spoken Of in
this hopeless way: "There is, and al
ways has been, a widespread b elief
among the more comfortable classes
that the poverty and suffering of the
masses are due to their lack of industry,
frugality and intelligence Some ben
efts are granted to come from these
qualities, but the notion, we are told,
sis mistake, because rent must drive
wages down." That all cannot be rich
is true, nor is great wealth the chief
end of man. But if "the destruction
of the poor, which is their poverty
cannot be largely averted by intelligent
self-restraint, wise daily conduct and
courageous industry, their lot is indeed
hard. 1t is a moderate estimate that
$500, OOO, 900 is spent yearly in liquors,
beer and tobacco by the wage workers of
our land. Suppose that saved and grind
ing poverty is ended except in few
peculiar cases of shattered invalidism, or
imbecility, and these would be tenderly
cared far. The drink-demon stands in
the way of cooperation, and of all plans
to ennoble the laborer. Let the State own
the land and this demon be unclaimed,
and the glowing hopes of Henry George
would perish. Why depreciate person
al virtue and industry to magnify the
alleged curse of land rent2 To assume
that poverty is the cause Of drunken
ness and other degrading and destruc-
tive habits is to lessen responsibility |